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On Friday, November 14, 2015, the University’s Sports Federation held its annual awards night at Iffley Sports Centre. The evening began with a champagne reception followed by a dinner and presentation of awards. For their efforts in the 2014-2015 season, the OUIHC was shortlisted for Club of the Year while current men’s captain, Timothy Donnison, was shortlisted for the prestigious Norman Bryce Smiley Trophy. The Women’s Blues were nominated for Team Performance of the Year, but unfortunately did not make it onto the shortlist.
The OUIHC won the award for Club of the Year, announced to the cheers of sixteen past and current members of the Club who attended the event. The nominations for both Club of the Year and the Norman Bryce Smiley Trophy are found below. Each nomination highlights the hard work, dedication, and perseverance of OUIHC members not only in the past year, but also for many years leading up to this wonderful achievement.
CLUB OF THE YEAR – OUIHC
‘The Oxford University Ice Hockey Club (OUIHC) has had one of it’s most triumphant years in its decorated 130 year history. After a 2012 dispute which saw 15 members of the Men’s Blues split from the club to form their own private team, the OUIHC was left without a Men’s Blues squad, prospects, and Blues status. As a result of the tremendous efforts of the 2014-2015 committees on both the men’s and women’s side, the Men’s Blues was re-formed and their Blues status re-instated. An undefeated performance of 18 wins in the previous season saw the second team (now the Men’s Blues) promoted to the top division in the British Universities Ice Hockey Association. Though they suffered a loss at Varsity, the reformation of the Men’s Blues with Blues status, allowed the first official Varsity Match to take place since 2012. For their efforts in the 2014-15 season, 9 Half Blues and one extraordinary Full Blue were awarded to the men’s team for what will be looked back on as a monumental season in the OUIHC men’s recent history. Future years of male Oxford student hockey players will benefit from the efforts of the 2014/15 OUIHC executive members.
The women’s contingent of the OUIHC saw the Women’s Blues demolish both Club and league records. After dominating all opposition in Division 1 non-checking (the highest division in women’s ice hockey), the Women’s Blues fell short of the top ranking by a meagre point. The team would go on to destroy Cambridge 25-0 in the Varsity Match. This score is the largest victory in women’s history, and third largest in the 130 year history of University Ice Hockey. Following this success, the team entered the National Championships with only 9 players (2 goalies and 7 skaters – due to exams). In the playoff rounds of the tournament, the women iced only 6 skaters (one player was sent off due to injury) against teams with two to three times as many. The Women’s Blues would go on to finish third, losing in the semi-final match against Northumbria, who would go on to win the title for a third successive year. The Blues proved to not only be one of the best women’s teams in the country, but one of the best teams in University non-checking hockey for which Universities have iced all/mostly men’s teams. For their efforts in the 2014-2015 season, the Women’s Blues were awarded 10 Half Blues and 1 extraordinary Half Blue. The team look to continue Dark Blue dominance on the ice whilst spearheading a nationwide movement that is seeing increasing numbers of women playing this historically male-dominated sport. The foundations for this have been laid down by the Women’s Blues 2014/15 season success – next year, we look forward to a women’s-only playoff final (to officially prove we are the best women’s team in the country) and Olympic coaching at the annual Oxford Women’s Blues Development Camp which aims to develop Women’s University ice hockey across the UK.
To conclude this outstanding season, the club also reinitiated an historic Club tradition of touring abroad. Forming an inclusive team of both Men’s Blues and Women’s Blues, the team travelled together to Stockholm, Sweden. To further solidify the efforts of unity exhibited by both men’s and women’s teams, the Club’s constitution was amended at the conclusion of the season, to reaffirm the Club ethos and identity of an inclusive community of competitive and committed scholar-athletes.’
NORMAN BRYCE SMILEY TROPHY – Timothy Donnison
The Norman Byrce Smiley Trophy is awarded to a sportsperson who displays the characteristics most valued by Norman Smiley – humility in one’s success, morality in one’s ambition, pride in one’s ability, and willingness to add value to one’s surroundings. Below is the anonymously-made nomination:
‘Tim has been a member of OUIHC for several years, starting with his time on the Vikings as a visiting student at Oxford in 2011. For the past two seasons, he has been an active executive member while reading for a DPhil. During his time, he has worked tirelessly to rebuild the OUIHC after a rift in the Oxford Ice Hockey world which caused a split in the men’s team. As the captain of the University’s official Men’s Ice Hockey Team he has been able to successfully recruit new players to the team by rebuilding the club’s reputation, manage relationships with influential alumni, coordinate the redesign of the club’s great new website and rebuild a unified hockey club which includes the Women’s Ice Hockey Team and the men’s second team, the Oxford Vikings. Through all of these accomplishments, he has remained cool and composed despite competing against and overcoming the actions of a rival Oxford team.
This candidate deserves to be recognized for his amazing achievements over the past two years because of his humility. He is a gentleman on and off the ice, and his given all of his time to rebuilding men’s ice hockey at Oxford, he is quite happy to do this because he loves the sport and he loves the team. Without Tim, there was a real risk that Men’s Ice Hockey at Oxford would collapse.
Last year was a tough season for Men’s Ice Hockey at Oxford. With two Oxford teams we had competition in recruiting players before the season had even begun, however thanks to Tim, we had our half blue status reinstated and this year, Men’s Ice Hockey at Oxford will dominate the rink once again.’[/fusion_text][images picture_size=”fixed” autoplay=”yes” columns=”1″ column_spacing=”13″ scroll_items=”” show_nav=”yes” mouse_scroll=”no” border=”yes” lightbox=”yes” class=”” id=””][image link=”” linktarget=”_self” image=”https://oxforduniversityicehockey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/12516396_10153691218961558_1599803290_n-165×300.jpg” alt=””][image link=”” linktarget=”_self” image=”https://oxforduniversityicehockey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/12583684_10153691218976558_52787619_n-300×225.jpg” alt=””][image link=”” linktarget=”_self” image=”https://oxforduniversityicehockey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2016-01-17-at-4.29.51-PM-241×300.png” alt=””][image link=”” linktarget=”_self” image=”https://oxforduniversityicehockey.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/sports-awards-invite-2015-213×300.jpg” alt=””][image link=”” linktarget=”_self” image=”https://oxforduniversityicehockey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/sports-fed-group-awards-300×225.jpg” alt=””][/images]